In the detection of product yield, static-current failure is a common failure mode for chips. With the evolvement of the technical node, the size of semiconductor device has become smaller and smaller, and the static-current has become larger and larger. For low power consumption devices, the requirement for the static-current is very strict. For example, if the static-current of the devices used in cell phone and laptops, etc., which use batteries as power sources, is significantly large, the standby time will be reduced. Thus, such products are less competitive in the markets. For the detection of a device failure caused by a large static-current, a commonly used procedure is to locate the failure position; and followed by a physical failure analysis (PFA). With the development of the semiconductor technology, the improvement of the integration level and the increase of the requirements for the static-current, it is more difficult to locate the device failure caused by the static-current.
The existing method for detecting the position of the device failure caused by the static-current is to find corresponding positions of hotspots on the circuit layout according to the positions obtained by a hotspot detection. Then, the failure spot may be found by delayering the chip to perform a PFA. However, in most cases, a plurality of similar hotspots may be found on the failure chip, but the failure spots may not be found by directly delayering the chip because the plurality of similar hotspots may not be the real position of the failure spots but the circuits affected by the failure spots. The disclosed methods and apparatus are directed to solve one or more problems set forth above and other problems.